ANDRE BEGIN

I wish I could understand why certain grocery stores are doing away with the convenient hand baskets that used to be a universal offering at all stores.

As a shopper who usually runs quick errands, shopping more frequently but for fewer items, it allows me to zip through the store at superhero speed, accessing only the aisles I need to visit, concluding my sprint at the express check-out, followed by a quick exit. The handbaskets are a convenient solution when you have just a few more items than one can easily carry without dropping anything.

The challenge is when you only need half a dozen awkwardly shaped items, just a little more than one can carry, but the only style of cart offered is one that can hold a week’s worth of groceries for a family of eight. It looks and feels weird, though that might be my male ego speaking, in not wanting to appear weak.

It’s not that I have a problem with large grocery carts per se, but they tend to slow me down. To me, grocery aisles should be like two-way streets, yet certain shoppers seem to pride themselves on being able to park themselves in the absolute centre of the aisle, creating an impassable obstacle with spouses or children in random orbits around the cart. With a hand basket, I can take a deep breath, suck in my stomach, raise my basket at shoulder height and squeeze by.

So why are the little baskets disappearing and why are certain stores choosing to only offer carts?

With a bigger cart, are shoppers more inclined to load it up with more items?

With a bigger cart, are shoppers more inclined to browse longer?

I am willing to extend the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to a possible shortage of staff. Maybe there aren’t enough team members to cover all stations and that they’ve had to “streamline”, eliminating the handbaskets, leaving only the bigger carts.

Frankly, I don’t have a problem with large carts, especially when I have a number of items to pick up.

Large carts came in handy during the pandemic when we were asked to keep our travels to absolute essentials and reverted to doing a week’s worth of groceries at a time.

I also appreciate large carts when I might be experiencing a back pain flare up. In those times, I avoid handbaskets to ensure that the basket doesn’t become a counterweight that might aggravate a spinal imbalance.

I also gravitate toward carts when the store feels like it is the size of a few football fields. Just from an energy standpoint, a bigger cart helps navigate the marathon length distance when I am not actively in training.

As someone who doesn’t have hours to linger in grocery stores, I keep a fairly meticulous grocery list and I only buy from the list. I’m not much of a browser and impulse shopping isn’t really my thing.

Given that foundational approach to my sense of organization in keeping the perishables and pantry stocked with our favourites, when I only need to pick up a few items at a time, I really wish hand baskets remained available at all stores for shoppers like me.

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Have a great day,
André